Nikita Creator Teases Changes for Mikita, New Doors for Alex and More!

Only three episodes on Nikita Season 3 and while we don’t know yet if there will be a Season 4, that hasn’t stopped creator Craig Silverstein from amping things up in this week’s episode “High-Value Target.”

Yes, it’s still a race to get the Black Box, which Sam (aka Owen) is trying to sell with Amanda in close proximity. But will Michael and Nikita get the Box... as well as save the nearly-defunct Division? And is Alex’s recent loss also weigh on her judgment moving forward?

Silverstein gave me a window into it all – and a peek at his AMC series Turn – when we spoke via phone yesterday...

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TV Fanatic: I want to back up a little to the Amanda backstory we found about in “Broken Home.” Was that purely to get some story holes filled or is some of that coming to play in these last episodes of the season?Craig Silverstein: It’s something that we discussed a ways back. We were looking for a way to express it and then it was getting late and it seemed like the right time to do it. There were plans to have that carry forward and pay off even more but those plans have been pushed a little further down the line.

TVF: The “High-Value Target” episode starts with a flashback to the pilot. Is that a signal that things are coming full circle in these last episodes?CS: Things do come full circle. For this episode, we actually had originally scripted a whole other flashback – one of [Nikita’s] other missions - that you had never seen before but just at the script stage we thought it would be confusing so we used the pilot, which everyone was more familiar with.

TVF: So much of the entire series has been focused on the Mikita relationship. They’ve been in a good place for awhile now but is their relationship challenged in these last episodes?CS: Yes. [Silence]

TVF: Alex is going through a lot with her guilt over Ryan and the death of Pierce. Are her emotions going to get in the way of what goes down in the next few episodes?CS: In the last two episodes, a new door begins to open for Alex and it’s a direction ahead that she really wasn’t thinking about at all and somebody plants a seed in her brain about it…maybe that’s a bad choice of words.

TVF: I was about to jump on that phrasing.CS: No, no. I mean in a good way, not in the literal way…

TVF: And this would be a good thing for her, right?CS: Yes.

TVF: Blowing up Division has been coming up quite a bit lately but is that something you would actually contemplate doing?CS: Sure.

TVF: We’re waiting to hear if we get another season but how does that affect where we’re heading with these final episodes of the season?CS: We felt that there’s still more stories to tell and that [Nikita’s] story doesn’t come to a full close at the end of this season so I’m hoping that we do continue and I have high hopes for that. Not sure for how many [episodes] but if we do we’ll be able to continue her journey.

TVF: In "Broken Home," Amanda did have Nikita captive and we assume she’s planted something inside of her. Will that be seen in these last episodes?CS: Yes but I don’t think…in true Nikita fashion, it won’t be in the way you expect.

TVF: Is Owen redeemable at this point? How far is he going to go on this bad road as Sam?CS: He’s redeemable right now, I think. He has killed a couple Division people but so has Nikita back when she was taking them out but now she’s having lunch with them. He hasn’t done anything in my life that’s irredeemable. He hasn’t crossed that line yet.

TVF: Will we see Owen again this season or will he stay Sam for the duration of this season?CS: He will be Sam. We think Sam is a pretty fun character. He’s a wild card and the arc of that guy is interesting and I wouldn’t want to bring it to a close too quick.

TVF: Your show at AMC, Turn, it might initially appear to be different from Nikita since it’s set in 1778 but it’s also the spy world so it might not be that different. CS: It does feel different because the speed of the storytelling is different. The speed in which the world worked back then was different. In terms of spy stories, there’s also a great range in terms of Ian Fleming on one hand and John La Carré on another. They’re both spy stories but they’re very different in their approach so I think that’s the main different.

TVF: Your show at AMC, Turn, it might initially appear to be different from Nikita since it’s set in 1778 but it’s also the spy world so it might not be that different. CS: It does feel different because the speed of the storytelling is different. The speed in which the world worked back then was different. In terms of spy stories, there’s also a great range in terms of Ian Fleming on one hand and John La Carré on another. They’re both spy stories but they’re very different in their approach so I think that’s the main different.